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nydus/The Notebooks of Leonardo da VinciPublic
Page 260 of 1234
Table of Contents

PROLEGOMENA AND GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE BOOK ON PAINTING

that whereas the arm from where it joins the side to the wrist, was 2 heads and a half, in bending it loses the half head and measures only two: one from the [shoulder] joint to the end [by the elbow], and the other to the hand.

The arm when folded will measure 2 faces up to the shoulder from the elbow and 2 from the elbow to the insertion of the four fingers on the palm of the hand. The length from the base of the fingers to the elbow never alters in any position of the arm.

If the arm is extended it decreases by 1/3 of the length between b and h; and if—being extended—it is bent, it will increase the half of o e. [Footnote 59-61: The figure sketched in the margin is however drawn to different proportions.] The length from the shoulder to the elbow is the same as from the base of the thumb, inside, to the elbow a b c.

[Footnote 62-64: The arm sketch on the margin of the MS. is identically the same as that given below on Pl. XX which may therefore be referred to in this place. In line 62 we read therefore z c for m n.] The smallest thickness of the arm in profile z c goes 6 times between the knuckles of the hand and the dimple of the elbow when extended and 14 times in the whole arm and 42 in the whole man [64]. The greatest thickness of the arm in profile is equal to the greatest thickness of the arm in front; but the first is placed at a third of the arm from the shoulder

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